An access node and a wireless device can communicate over one or more frequency bands. Due to propagation characteristics of the frequency bands, lower frequency bands tends to propagate a greater distance from access node than higher frequency bands, and further, as a wireless device moves away from the access node the signal level of the higher frequency bands falls off more rapidly than the lower frequency bands.
When the wireless device moves into the coverage area of a higher frequency band, a handover can be performed to instruct the wireless device to communicate over the higher frequency band when a signal level of the higher frequency band meets a threshold signal level. However, in order to accurately determine that the signal level of the higher frequency band meets the threshold signal level, the wireless device may perform frequent scanning of higher frequency band, which can reduce a data rate or a data throughput between the access node and the wireless device due at least in part to the frequent measurement periods assigned to the wireless device.
Overview
In an embodiment, it is determined that a modulation and coding scheme (MCS) assigned to a wireless device operating on a first frequency band meets an MCS threshold. An instruction is sent to the wireless device to determine a signal level of a second frequency band when the MCS meets the MCS threshold. When the signal level of the second frequency band meets a signal level threshold, a handover is performed of the wireless device from the first frequency band to the second frequency band.